(2) Naples, the Milanese, Sardinia, and the Netherlands were given to the Emperor, subject to the right of the Dutch to the military government of Furnes, Ypres, Menin, Ghent, Tournai, Mons, Charleroi and Namur as their barrier against France.
(3) France was permitted to retain Alsace including Strasburg, as she had been by the peace of Ryswick, but she had to surrender the fortresses of Kehl, Breisach, and Freiburg, which she had seized on the right bank of the Rhine.
(4) The electors of Köln and Bavaria were restored, the succession of the House of Hanover in England acknowledged, and the Chevalier banished from France.
(5) England received Gibraltar, Minorca, Newfoundland (subject to certain rights of fishing on the banks), Hudson’s Bay, Acadia, and S. Kitts, and acquired by an assiento, or agreement, with Spain the right to trade under strict limitations with certain towns in Spanish waters set apart for the purpose.
(6) The kingdom of Prussia was recognised and received upper Guelderland.
(7) Sicily and part of the Milanese were given to the duke of Savoy, and the fortifications of Dunkirk were agreed to be demolished.
The peace justly liable to censure.
The peace of Utrecht has been denounced perhaps with greater fervour than any of the great settlements of European affairs, except the treaty of Vienna in 1815. But in these denunciations attention has usually been directed more to the particular interests of nations and parties than to the general welfare of Europe. From this circumscribed point of view much may be said against the treaty itself, and still more against the means which were taken to bring it about. To institute secret negotiations for a private peace, behind the back of her own allies, was a proceeding most unworthy of England. To leave the Catalans, and the Cevennois, entirely without protection, to the tender mercies of Philip and Louis, after they had been induced to rise against their rulers by the promises and assistance of the allies, was both a crime and a blunder. Who could trust to English faith again? To permit Philip to retain the crown of Spain, and France to keep Alsace, to the detriment of the House of Habsburg, was unfair to the one power which had consistently opposed the supremacy of France, and unfaithful to the pledges of the Grand Alliance. All this is to a certain extent true. Yet a recognition of existing fact. After the concessions made by Louis at the Hague and Gertruydenberg, there is no doubt that he would eventually have signed a treaty much more favourable to the Emperor and his supporters than the peace actually made, rather than run the risk of continuing the war. It may be admitted that the Tory ministry made peace as quickly as they could, without much consideration for anybody except themselves, in order to be free from foreign complications when the crisis of the succession should occur at home. Yet from the larger point of view of the welfare of Europe, the peace of Utrecht, like its predecessor the peace of Westphalia, mainly registered and sanctioned accomplished facts. Substantially it ordered Europe for the future on the basis of development at which it had then arrived.
Since the last great settlement of the affairs of Europe three great changes had occurred in European politics.
1. It recognised the due position of France.